Thermal (pyrolysis) cracking of hydrocarbons is a non-catalytic petrochemical process that is widely used to produce olefins such as ethylene, propylene, butenes, butadiene, and aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and xylenes.
Basically, a hydrocarbon feedstock such as naphtha, gas oil or other fractions of whole crude oil that are produced by distilling or otherwise fractionating whole crude oil, is mixed with steam which serves as a diluent to keep the hydrocarbon molecules separated. The steam/hydrocarbon mixture is preheated to from about 900 to about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (° F.), and then enters the reaction zone where it is very quickly heated to a severe hydrocarbon thermal cracking temperature in the range of from about 1,450 to about 1,550° F. Thermal cracking is accomplished without the aid of any catalyst.
This process is carried out in a pyrolysis furnace (steam cracker) at pressures in the reaction zone ranging from about 10 to about 30 psig. Pyrolysis furnaces have internally thereof a convection section and a radiant section. Preheating is accomplished in the convection section, while severe cracking occurs in the radiant section.
After severe thermal cracking, the effluent from the pyrolysis furnace contains gaseous hydrocarbons of great variety, e.g., from one to thirty-five carbon atoms per molecule. These gaseous hydrocarbons can be saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated, and can be aliphatic, alicyclics, and/or aromatic. The cracked gas also contains significant amounts of molecular hydrogen (hydrogen).
Thus, conventional steam (thermal) cracking, as carried out in a commercial olefin production plant, employs a fraction of whole crude and totally vahporizes that fraction while thermally cracking same. The cracked product can contain, for example, about 1 weight percent (wt. %) hydrogen, about 10 wt. % methane, about 25 wt. % ethylene, and about 17 wt. % propylene, all wt. % being based on the total weight of said product, with the remainder consisting mostly of other hydrocarbon molecules having from 4 to 35 carbon atoms per molecule.
The cracked product is then further processed in the olefin production plant to produce, as products of the plant, various separate individual streams of high purity such as hydrogen, ethylene, propylene, mixed hydrocarbons having four carbon atoms per molecule, fuel oil, and pyrolysis gasoline. Each separate individual stream aforesaid is a valuable commercial product in its own right. Thus, an olefin production plant currently takes a part (fraction) of a whole crude stream and generates a plurality of separate, valuable products therefrom.
Natural gas and whole crude oil(s) were formed naturally in a number of subterranean geologic formations (formations) of widely varying porosities. Many of these formations were capped by impervious layers of rock. Natural gas and whole crude oil (crude oil) also accumulated in various stratigraphic traps below the earth's surface. Vast amounts of both natural gas and/or crude oil were thus collected to form hydrocarbon bearing formations at varying depths below the earth's surface. Much of this natural gas was in close physical contact with crude oil, and, therefore, absorbed a number of lighter molecules from the crude oil.
When a well bore is drilled into the earth and pierces one or more of such hydrocarbon bearing formations, natural gas and/or crude oil can be recovered through that well bore to the earth's surface.
The terms “whole crude oil” and “crude oil” as used herein means liquid (at normally prevailing conditions of temperature and pressure at the earth's surface) crude oil as it issues from a wellhead separate from any natural gas that may be present, and excepting any treatment such crude oil may receive to render it acceptable for transport to a crude oil refinery and/or conventional distillation in such a refinery. This treatment would include such steps as desalting. Thus, it is crude oil that is suitable for distillation or other fractionation in a refinery, but which has not undergone any such distillation or fractionation. It could include, but does not necessarily always include, non-boiling entities such as asphaltenes or tar. As such, it is difficult if not impossible to provide a boiling range for whole crude oil. Accordingly, whole crude oil could be one or more crude oils straight from an oil field pipeline and/or conventional crude oil storage facility, as availability dictates, without any prior fractionation thereof.
Natural gas, like crude oil, can vary widely in its composition as produced to the earth's surface, but generally contains a significant amount, most often a major amount, i.e., greater than about 50 wt. %, methane. Natural gas often also carries minor amounts (less than about 50 wt. %), often less than about 20 wt. %, of one or more of ethane, propane, butane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and the like. Many, but not all, natural gas streams as produced from the earth can contain minor amounts (less than about 50 wt. %), often less than about 20 wt. %, of hydrocarbons having from 5 to 12, inclusive, carbon atoms per molecule (C5 to C12) that are not normally gaseous at generally prevailing ambient atmospheric conditions of temperature and pressure at the earth's surface, and that can condense out of the natural gas once it is produced to the earth's surface. All wt. % are based on the total weight of the natural gas stream in question.
When various natural gas streams are produced to the earth's surface, a hydrocarbon composition often naturally condenses out of the thus produced natural gas stream under the then prevailing conditions of temperature and pressure at the earth's surface where that stream is collected. There is thus produced a normally liquid hydrocarbonaceous condensate separate from the normally gaseous natural gas under the same prevailing conditions. The normally gaseous natural gas can contain methane, ethane, propane, and butane. The normally liquid hydrocarbon fraction that condenses from the produced natural gas stream is generally referred to as “condensate,” and generally contains molecules heavier than butane (C5 to about C20 or slightly higher). After separation from the produced natural gas, this liquid condensate fraction is processed separately from the remaining gaseous fraction that is normally referred to as natural gas.
Thus, condensate recovered from a natural gas stream as first produced to the earth's surface is not the exact same material, composition wise, as natural gas (primarily methane). Neither is it the same material, composition wise, as crude oil. Condensate occupies a niche between normally gaseous natural gas and normally liquid whole crude oil. Condensate contains hydrocarbons heavier than normally gaseous natural gas, and a narrow range of hydrocarbons that are at the lightest end of whole crude oil.
Condensate, unlike crude oil, can be characterized by way of its boiling point range. Condensates normally boil in the range of from about 100 to about 650° F. With this boiling range, condensates contain a wide variety of hydrocarbonaceous materials. These materials can include compounds that make up fractions that are commonly referred to as naphtha, kerosene, diesel fuel(s), and gas oil (fuel oil, furnace oil, heating oil, and the like). Naphtha and associated lighter boiling materials (naphtha) are in the C5 to C10, inclusive, range, and are the lightest boiling range fractions in condensate, boiling in the range of from about 100 to about 400° F. Petroleum distillates (kerosene, diesel, gas oil) are generally in the C10 to about C20 or slightly higher range, and generally boil, in their majority, in the range of from about 350 to about 650° F. They are, individually and collectively, referred to herein as “distillate” or “distillates”. It should be noted that various distillate compositions can have a boiling point lower than 350° F. and/or higher than 650° F., and such distillates are included in the 350-650° F. range aforesaid, and in this invention.
The starting feedstock for a conventional olefin production plant, as described above, normally has first been subjected to substantial, expensive processing before it reaches that plant. Normally, condensate and whole crude oil is distilled or otherwise fractionated into a plurality of fractions such as gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, gas oil (vacuum or atmospheric) and the like, including, in the case of crude oil and not natural gas, a high boiling residuum. Thereafter any of these fractions, other than the residuum, are normally passed to an olefin production plant as the starting feedstock for that plant.
It would be desirable to be able to forego the capital and operating cost of a refinery distillation unit (whole crude processing unit) that processes condensate and/or crude oil to generate a hydrocarbonaceous fraction that serves as the starting feedstock for conventional olefin producing plants. However, the prior art, until recently, taught away from even hydrocarbon cuts (fractions) that have too broad a boiling range distribution. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,226 to Lenglet.
Recently, U.S. Pat. No. 6,743,961 issued to Donald H. Powers. This patent relates to cracking whole crude oil by employing a vaporization/mild cracking zone that contains packing. This zone is operated in a manner such that the liquid phase of the whole crude that has not already been vaporized is held in that zone until cracking/vaporization of the more tenacious hydrocarbon liquid components is maximized. This allows only a minimum of solid residue formation which residue remains behind as a deposit on the packing. This residue is later burned off the packing by conventional steam air decoking, ideally during the normal furnace decoking cycle, see column 7, lines 50-58 of that patent. Thus, the second zone 9 of that patent serves as a trap for components, including hydrocarbonaceous materials, of the crude oil feed that cannot be cracked or vaporized under the conditions employed in the process, see column 8, lines 60-64 of that patent.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/244,792, filed Sep. 16, 2002, having common inventorship and assignee with U.S. Pat. No. 6,743,961, is directed to the process disclosed in that patent but which employs a mildly acidic cracking catalyst to drive the overall function of the vaporization/mild cracking unit more toward the mild cracking end of the vaporization (without prior mild cracking)—mild cracking (followed by vaporization) spectrum.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,979,757, having common inventorship and assignee with U.S. Pat. No. 6,743,961, is directed to the process disclosed in that patent but which removes at least part of the liquid hydrocarbons remaining in the vaporization/mild cracking unit that are not yet vaporized or mildly cracked. These liquid hydrocarbon components of the crude oil feed are drawn from near the bottom of that unit and passed to a separate controlled cavitation device to provide additional cracking energy for those tenacious hydrocarbon components that have previously resisted vaporization and mild cracking. Thus, that invention also seeks to drive the overall process in the vaporization/mild cracking unit more toward the mild cracking end of the vaporization—mild cracking spectrum aforesaid.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/219,166, filed Sep. 2, 2005, having common inventorship and assignee with U.S. Pat. No. 6,743,961, is directed to the process of using whole crude oil as the feedstock for an olefin plant to produce a mixture of hydrocarbon vapor and liquid. The vaporous hydrocarbon is separated from the remaining liquid and the vapor passed to a severe cracking operation. The liquid hydrocarbon remaining is subjected to conditions that favor vaporization over mild cracking by introducing a quenching oil into the unit, and withdrawing from that unit a liquid residuum composed of quenching oil and remaining liquid hydrocarbons from the crude oil feed.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/365,212, filed on Mar. 1, 2006, having common inventorship and assignee with U.S. Pat. No. 6,743,961, is directed to the process of utilizing condensate as a feedstock for an olefin production plant wherein the feedstock is subjected to vaporization and separation conditions that remove light hydrocarbons from the condensate for thermal cracking in the plant, and leave liquid distillate for separate recovery.
Sometimes it is desirable to recover distillates from what would otherwise be feed for a thermal cracking furnace that forms olefins from such feed, and this invention provides such a process.
By the use of this invention, valuable distillates that are in short supply can be separately recovered from a cracking feed comprising condensate and crude oil and thus saved from being converted to less valuable cracked products. By this invention, not only is high quality distillate saved from cracking, but it is done so with greater thermal efficiency and lower capital expense than the approach that would have been obvious to one skilled in the art. One skilled in the art would first subject the feed to be cracked to a conventional thermal distillation column to distill the distillate from the cracking feed. This approach would require a substantial amount of capital to build the column and outfit it with the normal reboiler and overhead condensation equipment that goes with such a column. By this invention, a splitter is employed in a manner such that much greater energy efficiency at lower capital cost is realized over a distillation column. By this invention, reboilers, overhead condensers, and related distillation column equipment are eliminated without eliminating the functions thereof, thus saving considerably in capital costs. Further, this invention exhibits much greater energy efficiency in operation than a distillation column because the extra energy that would be required by a distillation column is not required by this invention since this invention instead utilizes for its splitting function the energy that is already going to be expended in the operation of the cracking furnace (as opposed to energy expended to operate a standalone distillation column upstream of the cracking furnace), and the vapor product of the splitter goes directly to the cracking section of the furnace.